In
March of 1942, the British army recruited a small force of twenty to thirty-eight
German Jews living in Israel to serve as a special intelligence unit to perform
commando and sabotage operations behind enemy lines in North Africa. The enemy
was the German army commanded by General Rommel, who led the so-called “Afrika
Korps.”

The
idea to do this had come from Herbert Cecil Buck, an officer in the Scots
Guards. Buck spoke German and knew that German Jews were living in British
occupied Israel. A number of those so recruited had already had experience as
commandos in the British armed forces. Others had served in the Hagana, Irgunor Palmach, all three Israeli units. Even former members of the French
foreign legion who had come from Germany were recruited.

These
men were trained near the Suez canal, then in British hands. They learned desert
navigation, hand-to-hand combat, handling of German weapons and explosives. They
carried fake German identities, learned German marching songs, and were supplied
with German pay books, cigarettes, chocolates, and fake love letters from German
“Fräuleins” at home.

All
this was carefully planned and seemed to point to success. To enhance the
preparations, the British conscripted two German prisoners of war from a
detention camp to train the Jewish platoon. Their names were Walter Essner and
Herbert Brueckner. They had been captured by the British and were to be used as
“double agents.”

Once
the unit had captured some German vehicles, they set up roadblocks in German
areas of north Africa and sabotaged a German airfield. These airfields were used
by the Germans to attack Malta, a British base in the Mediterranean. The
airfields were located in the Italian colony of Libya. These methods seem to
have succeeded until Brueckner, who was embedded in the Jewish unit,escaped from the British-German-Jews and betrayed them to nearby Nazi
troops. As a result, nearly all of the Jews were captured and killed. Only a few
survived, among them Maurice Tiefenbrunner, who was the only witness to these
events capable of recording them after the war. In September of 1942, the unit
was disbanded by the British and the few survivors assigned to another fighting
unit.

Much
later, in 1999, Maurice Tiefenbrunner recorded his experiences in this
connection and produced a booklet called “The Long Journey Home.”

This
shows that Tiefenbrunner was captured by the Italian allies of Germany. He was
later transferred to a German P.O.W. camp, which he survived to help in making
the film Tobruk, which is based on the experiences of the “Long Range
Desert Group,” as they were finally called. The actors were Rock Hudson and
George Peppard.

The
lesson. We Jews are no slouches. We can fight and defend ourselves, even if
Obama wants to see the end of Israel.